Original subtitles

September, 1940.

A colossal dogfight erupts in the skies over Southern England.

Hundreds of British and German planes engage in a duel to the death.

As wave after wave of Nazi bombers head for London,

they are met by the spitfires and hurricanes of the Royal Air Force.

The young RAF pilots are outnumbered five to

one, but know that defeat will spell disaster.

Invasion by Hitler's armies and occupation under Nazi rule.

This is the Battle of Britain.

In this series, we investigate the most extraordinary events

of World War II from a brand new perspective.

Matching rarely seen archive film, photography from the front line,

and declassified aerial reconnaissance images to their original locations.

We reconstruct the crucial battles, daring bombing raids, and

deadly terror weapons, which changed the course of history.

Soaring over the battlefields, we reveal the secrets of World War II from above.

14th of June, 1940.

A lone RAF reconnaissance plane

flies over the English Channel and into occupied France.

Its target is the Merville Aerodrome,

south of Calais, recently seized by Hitler's forces.

The onboard camera reveals a horrifying new threat.

More than 40 German bombers, all now within striking distance of England.

In the spring of 1940, Hitler's forces steamroll through Western Europe.

They capture and occupy the Netherlands,

Belgium, and Luxembourg before overrunning France.

The Germans nearly wipe out the British Army on the beaches of Dunkirk,

but Britain refuses to surrender, and by July, stands alone against the Nazis.

Hitler is enraged and orders his generals to draw up plans for an invasion of the UK.

Codenamed Operation Sea Lion.

If it succeeds, the whole of Britain

could fall under Nazi rule.

England's exposed south coast is ill-prepared for invasion.

Newly elected Prime Minister Winston Churchill is publicly defiant.

- The Battle of France, you know,

I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.

- But on many beaches, a handful of Home

Guard soldiers, mines, and flimsy barbed wire

are all that stand in the way of a German seaborne landing.

The town of Dover in Kent is particularly vulnerable.

It's the closest port to France and a key objective for the Nazi invaders.

A German aircraft takes this rare reconnaissance photograph.

It reveals how a series of coastal gun batteries

are rapidly built up along Dover's famous white cliffs.

Here, historian Robert Hall and a team of volunteers

rediscover a lost anti-aircraft battery buried for nearly seven decades.

The site that you can see today was constructed

just before the Battle of Britain really took off.

This was the nearest heavy anti-aircraft gun site to the occupied French coast.

And it was inevitably very busy all the way through the Battle of Britain.

The German high command knows that it needs

air superiority over the English Channel before launching any invasion of Britain.

So Hitler orders the German Air Force, the

Luftwaffe, to test Britain's coastal defenses.

The first daylight raids take place at the start of July.

Dover and its batteries are now right on the front line.

The guns at Wanstone are eight ton Vickers anti-aircraft guns.

Their four and a half meter barrels

can fire explosive shells over seven kilometers into the sky.

Over the next few months, these guns will be among the busiest in Britain,

defending what becomes known as Hell's Corner.

Firing just a single gun here is a huge team effort.

At the command post, skilled personnel

use the latest technology to pinpoint aircraft

in the sky and anticipate their onward path.

While others calculate the exact trajectory that the shells

need to take in order to hit the fast moving targets.

And at the sharp end, each gun has a team of 11 men

who can aim and fire up to 10 rounds per minute.

- The noise would have been incredible coming through from there.

The ground would have shaken.

You would have felt the vibration as the gun was firing.

So quite an intense process.

- Among the men who are posted here to defend Britain

from invasion is gunner Edward George Lawrence.

- We saw plenty of action there.

They were dive bombing Dover Harbor almost continuously.

And we were firing barrages of 30 and 40 rounds at a time.

I was very frightened at times.

Like everybody was.

The man isn't alive that wasn't frightened in action.

- Edward and his comrades are Britain's first line of defense.

Deep inside this bunker, Robert discovers how they play another more desperate role.

- What we have here is some of the record keeping by the quartermaster.

We've got a record here of 120 grenades that have been primed.

The men here weren't just trained to fire the guns themselves.

They also potentially needed to act as ground soldiers in the event of a German raid.

- The scale of the threat facing Britain's defenders is formidable.

By July of 1940, Germany controls all the air

bases in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

From there, 1,700 bombers and 1,100 fighters

are gearing up to strike the ports of Southern England.

At this time, German planes outnumber British fighter aircraft by nearly four to one.

This is the aircraft at the core of the German bomber fleet, the mighty Heinkel 111.

The plane is developed in the early 1930s and has an unusual design.

Historian Natasha Bilson investigates how its engineering evolved in secret.

- When you start to take a closer look and you really

see the shape of the body, it looks quite beautiful.

It doesn't look like a standard bomber and that's

because, wow, it wasn't built to be from the outside.

It was built to be a civilian aircraft as the Germans were not allowed

to have their own air force following World War I.

This is a fine example of a wolf in sheep's clothing.

- The Heinkel begins life disguised as a high-speed mail plane.

Engineers reconfigure the aircraft for combat once Germany rearms under the Nazis.

The aircraft's nose is made almost entirely of Perspex.

This gives the crew a perfect bird's eye view of their target.

Six 7.9 millimeter machine guns defend against incoming

enemy fighters and it's armed with a devastating payload.

The former mail compartment now becomes a bomb bay.

Instead of parcels and letters,

each Heinkel can carry up to two tons of high explosives.

At the start of the Battle of Britain,

the Luftwaffe has more than 600 armed and ready.

The German air force begins its campaign

with small raids designed to test the British defenses, but it soon steps up a gear.

On the 10th of July, 1940, the official start of the Battle of Britain,

Hitler's bombing campaign begins in earnest.

On the 11th of July, a dozen Heinkels

from an air base in France cross the English Channel.

They are on a mission to bomb Portsmouth Dockyard.

Shortly after 10 past six in the evening,

one of the aircraft is shot down and crashes onto a beach.

It's the first German plane to come down on UK soil during the Battle of Britain.

Despite these early casualties, German morale is high.

Many believe that Britain is doomed.

- Coming into the Battle of Britain, the Heinkel crews are battle hardened

and buoyed by this lightning fast sweep through France and Poland.

They have the combat experience that the RAF crews lack.

This is vital.

- But the UK is determined to fight the Nazi war machine.

And a key factor behind its stubborn resistance

lies here in the most unlikely of places.

This is Bentley Priory, a grand stately home in Stanmore on the edge of North London.

In 1940, this is the headquarters of Fighter Command

where the RAF directs the Battle of Britain.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding is Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command.

He knows that his pilots are brave, but outnumbered and outgunned.

So to even the odds, he transforms Bentley Priory's ballrooms

into the nerve center of the world's first air defense network.

Across Southern England, more than 5,000 civilian

observers keep a watch for incoming German aircraft.

They have direct telephone links to local reporting centers

which gather the information and relay it to Bentley

Priory, the central hub of the Dowding system.

From there, progress of the raids is phoned through to regional group headquarters.

They then alert the nearest airfields to

scramble fighters and intercept the enemy planes.

Many of the young pilots who receive the call to arms

are based in small airfields across Southern England.

Most climb into this single-seat fighter,

the Hawker Hurricane.

Pilot and former Royal Marine Commando Arthur Williams

believes that this plane is one of the unsung heroes of the Second World War.

- There's no doubt that without the Hurricane,

the Battle of Britain would have been lost by the Allies.

The more glamorous Spitfire takes the limelight,

but the Hurricane did its part and it did incredibly well.

- The RAF has more Hurricanes than any other fighter plane.

This aircraft is rushed into production in the 1930s

to counter the growing threat of Nazi Germany.

Under the hood is a 900-horsepower Rolls-Royce Merlin engine,

giving it a top speed of 505 kilometers per hour.

Within the wings, eight 7.7-millimeter Browning machine guns

spit out a total of 152 bullets every second.

This aircraft may not win any beauty contests,

but it is tough, easy to build, and dependable.

- If we come up really close to the fuselage, you can see these zigzaggy lines on it.

Now, these tell us that it's a fabric airplane,

it's canvassed, and although this was an older technology,

it did come with its advantages, particularly in wartime,

because if we're to shoot through this with a bullet,

it's very easy for field engineers and aircraft mechanics

to simply put a canvas patch over the top of it very quick.

- The RAF can call on more than 340 operational Hurricanes

at the start of July, 1940.

Unfortunately for the British pilots, they must do

battle with the most advanced fighter plane in the world,

the Messerschmitt Bf 109.

- The Messerschmitt 109, I love this airplane.

I know I'll be told off for saying that,

but it's such a beautiful-looking aircraft.

- This is one of the last operational Bf 109s in the world.

Unveiled during the 1936 Olympic Games,

the Messerschmitt trumps the Hurricane in almost every way.

Sporting an 1,100-horsepower Daimler-Benz engine, it can

fly 45 kilometers per hour faster than the British fighter.

As well as machine guns, it has a 20-millimeter cannon in each wing,

firing explosive shells that are devastating in combat.

- The pilots of these things would only need

to land a couple of those shells on target to decimate their opponent.

It's small, it's nimble, it's agile, bags of power, bags of firepower.

- The Messerschmitt could outperform the Hurricane

in combat, making it the perfect aircraft to spearhead

the next phase of Germany's aerial assault on Britain.

On the 1st of August, 1940, Hitler orders Hermann Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe,

to target more than just Britain's dockyards and wipe out the RAF.

Goering plans Operation Eagle and boasts that his men will sweep the RAF

from the skies of southern England in just a few days.

But Goering's confidence is misplaced.

Britain's aerial defense network doesn't just rely on the

bravery of its pilots or the sharp eyes of the spotters.

The RAF has a secret weapon, and it lies deep in the English countryside.

Flying over the fields of Great Badeaux in Essex reveals a mysterious steel obelisk.

At first sight, it looks like an electricity

pylon, but it is not connected to any others.

Military historian Lynette Nussbacher discovers how

this tower is, in fact, a 1930s radio transmitter.

The last complete example of an ingenious weapon

which the RAF hopes will win the Battle of Britain.

Radar.

- In 1940, radar is a new technology.

This is the beginning of electronic warfare.

- In the 1930s, the RAF realizes

that it is unprepared to fight a war against Nazi Germany.

So it develops an early warning system to compensate for its lack of fighter planes.

Two scientists, Robert Watson Watt and his assistant Arnold Wilkins,

discover that they can detect incoming enemy

airplanes by bombarding them with radio waves.

The two men devise a network of radio stations.

Multiple transmitter beacons, suspended between steel towers over 100 meters high,

send out powerful beams of radio waves.

And on nearby wooden towers, highly sensitive radio

receivers pick up any echoes bouncing back from the planes.

The system is a world first and extremely powerful.

Each station can detect enemy aircraft up to 160

kilometers away before they have even left the continent.

The British build 25 of these radar beacons,

a chain covering 2000 kilometers of coastline

and integrate them into the aerial defense network.

With direct phone lines to fighter command,

the RAF hopes this will buy them the extra time it so desperately needs.

- Tiny advantages make a huge difference in this battle.

Radar enables the Royal Air Force to focus their resources

and their efforts on exactly where the Germans are.

And once they're there, they're in the right place at the right

time to do their job, which is to shoot down German planes.

- Many of the radar operators are women.

They are sworn to secrecy, not even telling

their families about Britain's new wonder weapon.

The system proves its worth on the 8th of August, 1940.

RAF squadrons are ready and waiting

as the Germans launch one of their biggest raids so far.

They down 31 German planes in a single day.

The effectiveness of the defense infuriates Goering and stuns German pilots.

The Germans realize they need to take out Britain's

radar sites first to pave the way for Operation Eagle.

On the 12th of August, eight Nazi Messerschmitts

from Calais head towards the English coast.

Each aircraft carries a 250-kilogram bomb on its undercarriage.

Their target is the closest radar station to France just outside Dover.

The Messerschmitts drop their bombs over the

towers but struggle to score a clean hit.

When the dust settles, the station is still standing.

- If you look at this thing, it's mostly air.

It's really hard to hit any part of this that's gonna bring it down.

If you break one of the girders, you just replace the girders.

This is a robust system.

It's really hard to break with a bomb.

- The initial attacks fail to wipe out Britain's trailblazing radar network.

But instead of trying again, Goering is impatient to win air supremacy.

He moves on to the next phase of the operation,

the destruction of the RAF's airfields and its planes on the ground.

The decision to leave Britain's radar system intact is a critical mistake.

- The Germans don't really understand what the British are doing with radar.

The German Air Force is designed to support the German Army

in invading countries and taking over the world.

They want to drop a big bomb onto a tank, go boom, and go home.

The Luftwaffe has not got the cultural orientation

to understand that what they need to do is attack

the RAF as a system rather than to attack a target.

- Britain's radar is still active

and the Luftwaffe starts to lose planes at an alarming rate.

This Messerschmitt is one of the hundreds

of German aircraft shot down over the next two weeks.

But despite these losses, Nazi invasion plans gather pace.

Germany's 16th Army identifies a swathe of landing beaches from Dover to Dorset.

The Battle of Britain is about to enter a new and deadly phase.

By mid-August, people living near Britain's airfields have got used to German raids.

Until now, most have hit mainly military targets.

But shortly before midnight on the 24th of

August, the first bombs fall on central London

when a German flight supposedly veers off course.

The bombing destroys shops and offices in the city and

the West End, and it triggers a terrible escalation.

In retaliation, Churchill orders a series of raids on Berlin.

The attacks enrage Hitler, who now gives the Luftwaffe freedom to target London.

RAF Biggin Hill in Kent is one of several fighter bases defending the capital.

To protect the base, engineers camouflage its runway.

They paint streaks of tar on the grass to resemble hedgerows.

This makes it almost invisible from the air.

Arthur Williams investigates how Biggin Hill

now becomes the Luftwaffe's number one target.

- RAF Biggin Hill is one of the most symbolic airfields of the Battle of Britain.

It was on this very location that so much of the fighting took place.

- On the 30th of August, the Luftwaffe tries

a new tactic to fool the British radar teams.

Instead of aircraft approaching on a broad front,

the Germans attack in multiple smaller groups.

Launched at half-hour intervals, these raids are designed to saturate

the British early warning system, keeping the

defenders guessing with too many fires to put out.

The young pilots from 610 Squadron, based at Biggin Hill, know they are outnumbered.

But here, they fly the RAF's most advanced fighter.

A true icon of British history, the Supermarine Spitfire.

- Oh, the Spitfire.

How many millions of hours have we spent appreciating this design?

It's very, very slick, smooth lines.

- The Spitfire is a revolutionary new design.

Elliptical wings allow the aircraft

to turn in a tight circle and climb faster than a hurricane.

It can outpace even the formidable Messerschmitt.

- This is a thoroughbred racing/fighting machine.

And when compared to the Hurricane,

which if you think was kind of historically rooted in its aeronautical design theory,

the Spitfire was very forward-thinking.

It was cutting edge.

It was thinking about the future.

- In the Spitfire, the RAF has a machine that can

finally take on the Messerschmitt on its own terms.

In a one-on-one aerial battle known as a dogfight.

- So the Spitfire and the Messerschmitt were very equally matched.

It really boils down to luck and the experience

and skill of the pilot behind the control.

Typically, a dogfight would only last about 90 seconds.

I'd imagine to the pilots that were involved

in it, it would have felt like an eternity.

- The RAF pilots have less combat experience

going into the battle, but they are well-trained.

Among them is Ginger Lacey, one of the highest

scoring RAF aces of the Battle of Britain.

On the 30th of August, he is in the skies

over Southern England, not far from Biggin Hill.

To beat the raw power of the Messerschmitts in a

dogfight, pilots like Ginger have to outmaneuver them

to get on their tail and blow them out of

the sky before they even know what hit them.

- I much preferred to kill someone without him even knowing I was there.

His first indication that he was being shot at

was when bullets started coming out of his chest.

You didn't give a chap an even break.

You were firing at a man.

You were firing at an airplane of the wrong kind,

wearing the wrong markings and flying in our sky.

- Ginger Lacey alone is credited with downing 28 enemy aircraft.

But the statistics still tell a shocking story.

About one in six RAF pilots are killed during the Battle of Britain.

The life expectancy of a Spitfire pilot is just four weeks.

- You've got young men who are in their early 20s,

full of ego, capable, competent, intelligent, very skilled,

great judgment, going head to head against their rivals.

There would have been a mutual respect for that, I think.

But let's not forget that they're doing a job

and their job is to be killed or kill each other.

- Biggin Hill's pilots put up a spirited defense,

but there are too many Luftwaffe bombers for them to stop.

Fire crews battle to put out the flames from burning buildings.

This astonishing aerial photograph, taken by the Luftwaffe

during one raid, reveals the intensity of the attack.

Explosion clouds spread out across the airfield, leaving a trail of destruction.

The Germans now deploy the same relentless wave tactics

against other airfields with increasing success.

Britain's radar system struggles to cope.

And by the end of August, 1940, the Nazis appear perilously close

to winning the air superiority they need to launch an invasion.

In early September, Britain's worst fears seem to come true.

At Dunkirk in Northern France,

German barges and amphibious landing craft line

up, ready and waiting for the order to invade.

The Air Ministry prepares to issue invasion alert number one, attack imminent.

But one event will change the course of the war.

Saturday, the 7th of September, 1940, begins more quietly than previous days.

By mid-afternoon, the plotting table

at Bentley Priory lies empty.

The uneasy calm troubles fighter command.

Many wonder if this is the lull before the invasion.

Then at 4 p.m., Britain's ingenious radar network picks up a signal.

German bombers over the channel.

It's a massive attack.

The Luftwaffe use what they call the Valhalla Formation,

a gigantic swarm of bombers and fighters stacked 1.5 kilometers high.

Almost 1,000 aircraft are now just off the English coast.

Fighter command believes London's airfields must be the target.

But to their horror, the German aircraft carry straight on

and a second huge formation approaches from a different direction.

In a pincer move, they converge on the capital itself.

It is the beginning of the Blitz, the darkest chapter in the Battle of Britain.

The first bombs fall on London's Royal Docks and Woolwich Arsenal.

Soon the whole of the East End is ablaze.

Pillars of smoke reach hundreds of meters into the sky.

Historian Alexandra Churchill explores the impact of that devastating night.

Today, gleaming skyscrapers rise above London's Docklands,

but in 1940, these quays looked very different.

The Docklands would have been absolutely rammed with shipping.

It's just so absolutely critical, not only to Britain's war effort,

but Britain's economy and keeping British people alive during a war.

On the night of the 7th of September, London's dockyards are full of flammable goods,

which easily go up in flames when the bombs explode.

This incredible image shows warehouses on fire at Surrey Docks in Rotherhithe.

The intense heat turns the Victorian buildings into raging infernos.

But it's not just London's industry that suffers.

For the thousands of people living nearby, it is hell on earth.

The thing about Docklands is that it's haphazard,

so it's been evolving as the center of commerce in Britain for centuries,

which means that not only have you got factories everywhere,

but you've got houses crammed in, so it's really crowded, really densely populated.

As dawn breaks, and the sun rises behind Tower Bridge,

London still burns.

More than 430 people are dead, and 1,600 others injured.

But this is just the start of a new and terrifying Nazi bombardment.

24 hours later, the bombs fall again across London.

11 people die at Harrington Square,

where an explosion throws a bus against a terrace.

Not even the capital's most exclusive districts are safe.

This is Mayfair.

Palmau.

And Monument.

Half a dozen bombs even fall on Buckingham Palace,

while the royal family are in residence.

The next day, Queen Elizabeth, the wife of George VI,

says that she can finally look the East End in the face.

The Nazis hope that the blitz will shatter British morale,

but their plan is not just to sow terror.

German intelligence believes that the RAF is down to its last 50 fighters,

which the Luftwaffe wants to destroy in a titanic battle over London.

In fact, Britain's losses are nowhere near as bad as the Nazis think.

The decision to stop bombing Fighter Command's airfields gives it time to rebuild.

As horrible as the blitz is for Londoners,

you can make an argument that it helps the Battle of Britain.

They get time to repair airfields, you get time to bring new pilots through.

So had they not done that, it might have ended up differently.

The RAF is far from finished, but victory or defeat rests on a knife edge.

The next few days will decide the outcome of the battle.

48 hours after the start of the blitz,

the Germans fix a date for their invasion of Britain,

the 20th of September, 1940.

But for Hitler, time is running out.

The Nazis know that they only have a short window left

to launch an invasion before winter sets in.

And they still do not have the air superiority they need.

So on the 15th of September, both sides make one final roll of the dice.

100 German bombers attack the Kent coast.

The RAF meets them with a new formation, the Big Wing.

Five squadrons of tightly packed fighters attacking together.

The Big Wing repels the German attack,

but the Nazis aren't finished yet.

They send a second wave, hurling even more bombers at the capital.

The RAF scrambles every plane and pilot it can

find and what will become Battle of Britain Day.

Sunday, the 15th of September was another ordinary sunny day.

It was perfect flying conditions and RAF fighter command

were expecting another very busy, intense day of fighting.

But nobody could predict just how pivotal

that day would prove to be in the overall outcome

of the Battle of Britain and ultimately the Second World War.

The people of London and Kent watch as an enormous aerial battle rages above them.

The vapor trails of spitfires, Hurricanes and Messerschmitts fill the sky.

Over London, Hurricane pilot Ray Holmes attacks a damaged

German bomber heading straight for Buckingham Palace.

Fresh out of ammunition, Holmes goes for broke.

He decides to ram the Nazi plane and slams his left

wing into the enemy's tail before bailing out to safety.

This incredible photograph captures the moment

the German plane plunges to the ground, minus its tail fin.

The aircraft crashes into the forecourt of Victoria Station,

just a few hundred meters away from the palace.

The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill,

follows the progress of the battle in West London.

He asks his commanders how many reserves are available.

The answer he receives is there are none.

Shortly after 2.15pm, more than 170 RAF fighters

attack a second wave of German bombers over Kent.

It stuns German high command and shatters their illusion

that the RAF is down to a handful of planes.

The 15th of September is a day where everything rested on a knife edge.

The Luftwaffe launched one of its greatest offences

during the battle, and the RAF put up everything they had in defence.

On that day, the Luftwaffe suffered unsustainable losses,

and they realised that their strategy had failed badly.

The 15th of September is a turning point.

It is the moment when the Luftwaffe accepts that it

has failed to crush the RAF and gain air superiority.

The German Air Force has lost up to 1,800 aircraft,

and more than 2,000 men in a costly battle of attrition.

The RAF's losses, though heavy, are far fewer in number.

Over 900 aircraft and more than 400 men.

Britain's ingenious defence network has proved a stunning success.

Radar has allowed a small number of brave pilots to take on and defeat superior odds.

Hitler's blitz will continue for another eight months,

and kill 43,500 civilians across the UK.

But the Battle of Britain has been won.

Without mastery of the skies, the Nazi invasion cannot succeed.

Hitler calls off the operation and turns his attention east, towards Russia.

One speech by Churchill sums up the national mood.

- The gratitude of every home in our islands,

in our empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in

the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

- Today, a memorial to the fallen in the shape of

a huge propeller is carved into the cliffs of Kent.

The Battle of Britain is a story of incredible bravery

and sacrifice, and a determination to never surrender.